


Five Blankets (And One Nap)

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [100]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Family, Fluff, Gen, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24872899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: In honor of Soft Wars' 100th Fic!in a series that was supposed to be a threeshot
Series: Soft Wars [100]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 244
Kudos: 607





	1. Chapter 1

Rex lets himself into their dorm just past sixteenth hour and proceeds to, in a very literal sense, browse.

Bly has some well-chosen, multi-syllabic words for whoever gave him the codes to their door (and their hall. And their floor. And the _CC wing_.) after they had _agreed_ they weren’t going to keep letting him hang around.

CTs belong in their natural habitat, Wolffe had decreed from his expert opinion. Bly supposes he’d know. He’d claimed if they keep him too much they might risk him getting rejected by the herd. They’d _all_ agreed and Ponds had been made to swear he wouldn’t keep feeding him.

Rex picks up some arcane tangle of wire Cody claims is art, fiddles with it for all of three seconds then puts it back an inch off center and thirty degrees rotated from where it had sat. Little brat, Bly thinks with a resigned sort of fondness. He hides his smile behind his holopad. No use letting the invasive species know it’s amusing; they made that mistake once with Wolffe and he hasn’t stopped since.

Bly tracks him by sound. It’s a skill of his, one he’s particularly fond of. He can pinpoint noise and still keep his eyes scanning across a document, directing his attention without ever appearing to take any sort of interest in the other goings on. It’s a defense mechanism, growing up with three brothers who decided that the best representation of their squad was the word _ Shebs _1.

That clink was Cody’s weather-smoothed coin. That rustle Ponds’ rainbow-puke-colored boot liners. That tink tink was Wolffe’s… something too rusted to go back in a jet. Who knew? Probably not even Wolffe.

“I’m bored,” the little announces, as though his progression through Bly’s brothers’ treasures indicated anything less.

“Congratulations,” he hums. It’s another skill of his: the idle un-acknowledgment. Calculated for most aggravation, and a fitting payment generally for whoever earned it. It’s a tone that, in a single word, can say Bly’s aware of your existence and is anywhere from completely ambivalent to actively uncaring of it. There’s not a vod in their dorm that doesn’t get their dander immediately a-fluff at that tone, though Cody is getting much better at faking unconcern.

It does still usually earn Bly a tackle. He’d love to see if the pest tries that.

He doesn’t. Shame. Bly’s history reading was particularly dull and could have used some live reenactment.

“What are you reading?”

“Texts.”

The huff is a full-bodied one, cross-armed, bristling indignant. It’s cute, and Bly makes a note to trip Ponds later for putting that thought in his head.

“I know _that_ -”

“Then you didn’t need to ask the question, did you?”

“You’re kind of a jerk.”

“I suppose you’re nearly big enough to have your own whole opinions.”

Littles, Bly thinks with glee: always annoyed at their littleness.

The crossed arms are joined by a glare and the kind of toothy snarl Bly’s seen in Squad _ Edee _2. Ugh. _Ponds_. It has to be Ponds. Who else spends half their time over in Edee trying to see if he can goad reactions out of the cussy one? And now he’s gone and infected the little they said they weren’t going to keep.

“Does it make you feel _accomplished_ huh? Talking down to people? Must be nice setting real easy life goals for yourself.”

There’s a third skill Bly has mastered, and perhaps it’s his most devastating. He looks up at the pest, politely bland. He looks down, as if it’s more bother than worth.

The brat growls.

Bly’s hefted ammo crates heavier than this scrawny, bandy-legged yowling little polycotton puff. He’s _rucked_ heavier than him on an all-day march. He’s been bowled over by bigger and bitten by harsher thank you _Cody_ but there’s something particular about the combination that's just the edge of enough to throw Bly off.

The kid hits Bly’s side shoulder-leading like a professional and windmills his arms like a brawler. Undisciplined, he’d have said, except for the hand that does end up smacking the side of Bly’s nose and sending star-shaped crackles of static through his right vision.

He’s miscalculated. This isn’t one of his squadmates he’s goaded into providing him some spare moments of entertainment in an otherwise dull afternoon. This is a baby. A tiny, little, _breakable_ baby _ vod'ika _3 and Bly doesn’t remember how rough is too rough for that size.

Littles don’t know how small they are, or how delicate.

Bly can’t hit back, not and make any claim to morality. He can’t dodge, really, in close quarters and with the kid throwing haymakers like the longnecks started brewing berserkers. Bly will complain about the lack of finesse when there isn’t a tiny, pointy fist aiming for his armpit.

The kid lunges, punch leading, and Bly whips a blanket around his head.

It doesn’t disorient him for long, a second or two at most but a second or two is all Bly needs. Down the sides, wadded up around the waist, rolled to pin arms to sides and legs together until Bly has himself wrapped up a thrashing little wildling in a bunk blanket cocoon.

Bly sits on him.

“Next time,” he informs the wriggling bundle with a voice he hopes doesn’t sound too breathless. “Try to knock me off the bed first.” The wrap pauses.

“Didn’t want to hit your head and damage your brain any more,” the brat bites out. “People seem to think you use it sometimes.”

Oh kark, Bly _likes_ him doesn’t he?

“You need all the help you can get,” he assures the kid and gets the nudge of an attempted kick for that. Well, if he’s going to be like _that_ when Bly was only trying to offer helpful criticisms…

Bly scrolls back up the several lines he only pretended to read. He has a captive audience, and the agonizing millenia-long crawl of the Republic through different preference of squad formations could only be improved when sprinkled with someone else’s despair. Bly begins to narrate.

* * *

“How cute!” someone coos.

“I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth,” someone else simpers.

Bly refuses to open his eyes on principle. “Why don’t you stick something unpleasant somewhere uncomfortable?”

“Seconded,” his pillow chirps and he pokes it until it quiets with a put-upon grumble.

“So does this mean we’re keeping him?” a third voice asks, and taps a knuckle to the top of Bly’s head. He worms away from the touch irritably.

“No,” Bly mutters and hugs the bundle under his chin tighter. “Shut up.”

He falls asleep to laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Ass, Asshole. Back  
> 2\. Teeth, Jaws. Back  
> 3\. Little Brother. Back  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you need a karking nap, LT?”

Well now, Kix thinks. He _has_ been trying to prompt his staff to be less formal with him and each other. But this is quite a leap, even for Coric.

The funny thing is, this might be the only sentence Kix has ever heard from him that _didn’t_ sound faintly sarcastic.

“Because respectfully,” he continues, darn well aware of Kix’s opinions on that word. It’s never used in anything but the least respectful situations. Coric’s lips quirk into a half-smile over the rim of his mug. “On a scale of one to ten, you’re running at about a ‘Headless Hawkbat’.” Case in point.

Kix tosses his padd underhand to the nearest cart and pushes up with a groan.

The medtent air tastes of bacta and antiseptic, and under that there’s a flash of cordite and ozone pinching at the very back of Kix’s tongue. Battle still rings at the base of his skull but it’s all formless echoes and the memories of a cracked retorts. They’ll stay a vague imprint until Kix closes his eyes, he knows, and then they’ll play in sharp colors and angles. There’s a fist-sized knot that’s taken residence at the base of his spine. It’s been a three day battle and a multi-cramp triage, though all the others before could be worked out in situ.

Kix stands, stretches, and his back doesn’t even do him the courtesy of popping to relieve the pressure.

Coric eyes him boots to bucket with a medic’s analysis and ends with a stunningly nuanced judgmental look. There’s accusations of hypocrisy in it, a guess at how well he didn’t hydrate, an estimation of reduced efficiency, all wrapped up in a neat little bundle of _stang,_ _you karking meatbread_. Kix debates whether or not not to ask what day it is. He’s idly curious at just how disgusted that glare could get.

“It’s on the checklist,” Kix replies and Coric’s visage is thunderclouds on the horizon. Kix understands.

If it had been anyone else, Kix would have pulled rank a day ago. But _everyone’s_ short on medics; Wave Company has even fewer than Torrent does and no one cares what paint’s on your shell when they haul you in, just how many hands you need to hold your insides in.

Above and beyond that, though, Kix is the ranking officer in the bay. Some things he just has to do himself. GAR systems don’t care for situation-on-the-ground, just correct officer codes.

“And how many entries are there on _the checklist_ before you set your shebs down?”

“If I tell you, we’re going to have an argument and we agreed to limit that.”

Little Blasters have Optimized Audio Sensors. Kix raises a meaningful eyebrow and tips his head just a twist towards a knot of sweaty Privates stealing a few minutes of rest. Kix isn’t sure whether or not he hears Coric actually growl, but the SSgt swallows back words no doubt half again as bitter as his caff and twice as hot. The war is hell enough without the kids needing to see them _politely disagree_ at volume and viciousness.

War is hell enough, but these Shinies waged unceasing battle only against the insidious encroachment of the fine dust that flits in and under and around everything. They grumble, sometimes, imagine how much more _useful_ they could be out front, throwing themselves in search of glory under the treads of droidekas.

Kix usually finds himself grateful for the Captain’s eccentricities but this one would have bought him Kix’s loyalty if he hadn’t already had it: it’s been a little while since Kix has had to bury a vod with nothing to him but a number. Kix would keep every damn one of these kids tucked away in his medbay if he could.

There’s a tap, a tink of plastoid on plastoid and it tears Kix’s eyes down to his bracers in distant, idle puzzlement. Coric’s plating taps his, arm on arm. The noise is louder than the imprint of the rifle retort ringing deep in Kix’s right auditory nerve. His next breath isn’t ragged, but it’s only by force of will.

“Fuck a sith with the shiny end of their glowstick,” Coric mumbles. He taps, armor on armor and riveted by the sound and the implications that curl around it.

It shouldn’t be strange. Squads live on and around and through each other from the day they’re assigned to the same column of pods. Squadmates tap bracers as greeting, as apology, as a punctuation of words and silences. But what happens, Kix wonders, when you don’t have your squad anymore?

The Privates in the corner snicker together, tease and chat and live in the moment as friends. All three of them have wrapped a careful blanket of air around themselves. They share words but not space. They _live_ but don’t connect.

No one in Torrent came with their cadet squad. No one has much of one anymore. And no one, it seems, has been brave enough to try rebuilding those bonds. It isn’t right, for vode. Isn’t natural.

Coric taps their bracers together. Kix steps in, presses their pauldron’s together and does him the favor of ignoring the startled second before he presses back.

The SSgt swallows. “A nap, LT,” he rasps.

“On the list, Sgt,” Kix apologizes. There’s still too much to do.

“Ten karking minutes, sir. Get a karking blanket and grab the edge of a cot for ten karking minutes and I’ll kriff off.”

It’s the most bold-faced fib Kix has ever been told to his face, and lying to medics is the vode’s second most popular pass time right after ‘attempting idiocy that results in trips to medbays’.

“Ten minutes,” Coric wheedles and he’s won before Kix has even thought about it.

The months since Geonosis were the longest Kix has gone without anything but professional contact. He thinks it might be the same for his SSgt. He thinks his SSgt is already planning how to weaponize it.

“Ten minutes,” Kix warns, over the foil-crinkle-tear of a vacuum-packaging and the powder-starch whisper of the medical blanket inside. “ _Ten minutes_ Sgt, then I need to get back to work.”

“Ten minutes,” Coric lies and crushes them both atop a cot and beneath a blanket each only meant for one.

* * *

“Oh _kriff me_ ,” Coric groans. For his own peace of mind Kix pretends he doesn’t hear Del’s plaintive ‘ _I’m trying!’_. “ _Why_ did the blasted longnecks figure out how to program in Prime’s dumbass blaster spinning move but not how to program _out_ pollen sensitivity?”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all got assigned some sort of head covering with built-in filters?” Stitches gets braver when he’s the bottom of a vod pile. More uppity. It’s not like he can be demoted any further, after all. “If that sort of thing existed, I’m sure _no one_ would randomly take them off during an engagement for no reason.”

Kix nudges the Cpl with a heel and feels the shuffle of at least two others doing the same. A pointless exercise, likely, but the principle stands.

“This is why you’re always going to be the youngest,” Coric grunts and drops himself heavily onto the pile. And _this_ is why they have to pile on sleeping bags on the floor. Projectile vod are a medbay cot’s worst nemesis.

Kix fishes his holopad from under Coric’s hip and slaps him with it. “Any bones you break, you set,” he threatens and is soundly ignored.

The on-call medics grumble and shuffle, poke and prod until each vod’s pointier bits are rearranged to least lethal. Glint pries himself from the pile, burrows out from under the disorganized bundle of blankets and slouches off to man reception and the conveyor belt of sneezing vode rotating through. Kix balances his holopad on the back of Coric’s shoulders and neck.

If he’s lucky, Kix can get through one more requisition before drowsiness pulls him under.


	3. Chapter 3

“ _It’s hideous!”_

Bacara hesitates. It’s little more than a stutter, and perhaps in most it would have been there and gone unremarked and unremarkable. But Bacara’s words are always, always careful and deliberate; even a single fumbled one feels noticeable. The General, however, doesn’t look up from the holomap.

The command tent’s two heaters are both pointed at the inner workings of the holotable controls and whining treble in the small space. Despite their best efforts it still flickers threateningly if left on one display too long. Whoever built their display equipment must have never considered it would be used outside of a climate controlled briefing room. It’s just a shame that their gear freezes before the CIS droids do; Bacara would have been willing to consider the junk they're assigned more charitably if that was the case.

He switches to the next image of their current terrain and waits for the shaking scanline effect to settle into something recognizable. He’s practiced this report enough; he knows where to pick back up.

He only gets a sentence or two further.

“ _I think my eyes are actually bleeding.”_

The trouble, he thinks as he blinks through the second interruption of words, is that he knows that maliciously gleeful tone. It’s a harbinger of humiliation and Bacara has the sinking suspicion he knows who that wave is coming for.

This time the pause is odd enough that General Vos does take notice. He tops his ever-present smirk with a quirked brow. “The elevation advantages are _that_ riveting, are they Commander? Because I honestly wouldn’t blame you if you bored yourself to sleep just now.”

“My apologies,” Bacara says and dutifully ignores the giggle in his earpiece.

After this, if he manages to get _through_ this without embarrassing himself preemptively he thinks he might go take a watch shift. Bacara will stand against hoards and will rip enemy weaponry apart with his bare hands. He can’t decide if he’s got strength enough today to handle Neyo in the throes of schadenfreude’d bliss. Perhaps he’ll go find a fight somewhere instead.

General Vos tips his head, inquisitive, and Bacara not for the first time wishes for his helmet. It’s no more likely to hide him from General Vos’ senses than staying very still is to fool a battledroid but at least armored up they can both pretend Bacara ever is focused and professional.

But Bacara’s discovered Vos communicates better face to face. He’s far more likely to communicate _at all_ this way, rather than just haring off and expecting ground forces to keep up or be left. It’s a small sacrifice in Bacara’s mind. It’s also probably why Bacara is the one here briefing a General not his own while Faie sulks somewhere and pretends towards stoic.

“It’s nothing,” Bacara finally offers when he’s let the silence linger just the awkward side of long. Vos doesn’t argue but he does frown, annoyed.

" _It could be a creative assassination technique._ " That’s Faie’s grumble, and though Bacara’s not as familiar with him his amusement is clear enough. “ _It’s at minimum an attack on good taste._ ”

“ _It looks like someone was sick right after eat-_”

Bacara slaps his earpiece silent.

“Still _nothing_ Commander?”

Vos is an interesting one. An anomaly among the Jedi, or at least among the ones Bacara’s ever met. He has that edge of sharpness Bacara’s come to associate with spies, that way of looking at you as though he knows everyone has secrets shuffled hidden under their bunks and he suspects yours are particularly egregious. He’s mercurial and dangerous and Bacara likes him the way he likes any mercurial, dangerous weapon: lethal parts pointed away.

Faie hates him, but it might be shorter to list the people Faie _doesn’t_ hate so it’s hardly an indictment. In this though, Bacara’s been fortunate. The Marshall Commander had just sent him a copy of The Manual commanders the galaxy over have been crafting, with special commentary in this file specifically about Vos written by General Kenobi himself.

“Faie and Neyo have moved on from bullying one another,” he says and for just a second allows his resignation to show. “And have united against a new target. It is probably me.”

_Remind him you’re people_ , Kenobi had written _and be as genuine as you can._ _Disparity between the emotions you experience and the ones you present greatly aggravate him._ _Also insult him often, so he knows you care._

“Or you,” Bacara offers, as much as he’s willing to concede to that last instruction.

Vos snorts. “Faie wouldn’t dare.” The way he shapes the words isn’t a threat. It’s a statement and judgment all rolled into one truth. He’s right; Faie _wouldn’t_ dare regardless of how much he’d want to. It sounds as though that’s a large part of the reason Vos dislikes him in return.

Bacara thinks he knows where it’s coming from, recalls the glimpses of their training and can understand how it could lead to Faie’s feral dedication to order and structure just as easily as Neyo’s. It isn’t his place to say that.

Besides, who’s to say it isn’t just Faie’s ever-present oneryness deliberately opposing Vos’ unpredictability with rigidity. He seems the type.

“Perhaps,” is all Bacara allows.

His comm chimes with an incoming message. ‘ _It’s disgusting, you’ll hate it!!!_ ’ the text says with unwarranted excitement and the image attached has been giddily named _Vom_ _TheRainbow_.

When did Neyo start using multiple exclamation points? And… vom? What’s a vom?

“It’s me,” he confirms and very deliberately suppresses the frisson of curiosity. He very, very deliberately closes the message. “Apologies for the interruption.”

Vos scoffs. “Don’t bother, just go. You’re inflicting this sitrep on us both and I can use an excuse to not have to hear any more. _Go_ ,” he orders before Bacara can muster a word of protest. “Go let your brothers mock you for whatever idiocy they’ve found.” He smiles and it’s bitter. “The war will still be here tomorrow.”

Vos turns back to the display. The holotable generator chugs resentfully in the silence.

Do Jedi have brothers? Family? Bacara wouldn’t think so but the tense words and tenser line of Vos spine hints otherwise. Besides, clones really weren’t supposed to either.

“Sir,” Bacara starts but has no words to go from there.

“A clone pitying a Jedi,” Vos murmurs idly. “This galaxy really _has_ gone right to hell hasn’t it?”

Bacara only has a handful of languages to him and none of them are offering up anything to ease the pressure that has built up inside these blastweave walls. He isn’t like Rex, who always seems to have the right ones. Or like Neyo, who will birdshot words into existence until he stumbles across ones that work. Bacara has what he has, and there’s no choice but to make it be enough. He slips into parade rest.

When he doesn’t have words, he has stubbornness.

Vos ignores him commendably long, through two more message chimes and one change of display. Parade rest was designed to be held indefinitely and Bacara was designed to last. The holotable wasn’t. Vos lingers too long on that next image and the projector cuts out with insect-like clicks and a snide down-cycle of its internal fans.

Bacara doesn’t think anyone would blame him for finding Vos’ boggle-eyed blink at the darkened display at least a little amusing.

“This is actual garbage.”

“Sir,” Bacara agrees. “And if I leave you won’t have anyone to restart it.”

Vos slowly straightens. His look is humored calculation. It suits him better than melancholy. “An ultimatum? Either both of us leave or neither of us do.”

“Sir,” Bacara repeats, because he’d never make those sorts of demands to a superior officer but he finds he’s maybe not above insinuating.

They both pretend not to realize the holotable is finicky, but hardly complicated. The arcane series of smacks the techs swear by is really more a prayer than a science.

Vos surrenders, because Bacara never does. “Alright Commander,” he acquiesces with a laugh. “You go submit to your due humiliation. I’ll find some way of amusing myself. Report back at o’six.”

When Bacara leaves, it is with a note to have a quiet word with Sgt Rothax. That still of his, the one Bacara has no knowledge of, has a preternatural tendency to make fast friends of perfect strangers. Vos seems like he could use one or two of those.

* * *

“This is a good one,” Vos says. The words are the most genuine Bacara thinks he’s heard from him.

The blanket is a tumble of crooked stitches, noticeably wider at one end than the other and lumpy in places where the fibers don’t sit quite flat. It is, as Neyo had hinted, a clash of colors with no discernible theme. It’s as though someone kept running out of material, and picking back up with whatever they’d found next. It is, objectively, hideous.

It’s the warmest thing Bacara thinks he’s ever held.

Vos rolls his fingers along the narrow end’s edging, where the stitches are the tightest.

Funny, he’s not wearing gloves. The Kiffar General had gone sleeveless in sleet near horizontal in the wind without care but he’d never once removed his gloves that Bacara had known.

Vos catches a tangle where one fiber transfers to another and brushes it gently. “This was made for you, you know. There’s thoughts of you in the stitches.” He grins, a cheeky thing. “You were _supposed_ to feel horrified by the color choices.”

He is, and no little bit.

“I’m not going to turn down added insulation,” he says instead. Neyo had made sure of that. It had come with their supply drop with his name pointedly tagged on front, and the spy made very sure that every man in this detachment knew the thing by sight and knew that it was Bacara’s and he should not be allowed to give it away.

Faie, as is his wont, continuously egged him on. It seems they have a similar strain of sadism. It must be why they only ever get along when they’re targeting someone else. If nothing else, Bacara supposes, this at least allowed them some interaction where they _weren’t_ competing against each other for no real ground gained.

“Yeah,” Vos chuckles. “Yeah you were supposed to react exactly that way.”

“Do you know who made it?”

Bacara knows before the words are formed that he isn’t going to get an answer. Vos winks. He refolds the blanket over the back of one spindly-legged chair.

“Don’t we have some rocks to study, Commander?”


	4. Chapter 4

Rage bubbles like foam in his mouth. He gives, no _heaves_ it to the Force; he pries loose anger’s greedy little claws pin-prick-held at the edges of his mind, presses it out out _out_ giving no quarter to the bleeding trails of hurt it drags along behind it. In the void that’s left there isn’t peace.

Anakin hasn’t known peace in what feels like eons. He doesn’t remember what it was like.

Betrayal rushes in to fill the empty spaces and tints the wounds with bitterness. That’s far more familiar.

Obi-Wan cares for him, he _knows_ that. But every day it feels a little more like Obi-Wan cares more for the fantasy of Anakin, the perfect Jedi in his own image. And Obi-Wan _is_ perfect, and a perfect person couldn’t understand the struggles Anakin has to fight every day just to keep his facade intact. And if the mask falls? Where will Obi-Wan’s care be then?

Gone, Anakin suspects thinks _knows_. Because Obi-Wan cares for Anakin as his legacy, as his _lineage_ and they’d both spent Anakin’s apprenticeship dutifully ignoring all the others of the lineage who had stepped away.

After all, didn’t he send off to Coruscant for a replacement, for _Ahsoka_ who will be better than Anakin ever could be? Didn’t he send for someone before the burn of Anakin’s braid was even cold? His work with Anakin was done and it was time to move on. Time to step into the circle of the council who have _doubted_ and _questioned_ every move Anakin has ever made, who questioned his _right_ to even be trained.

It’s always clearer here. Always easier to remember after his talks and he wonders if, in the temple, there’s something there that is dulling the sharp edges of those memories. Is there something the Jedi are doing to make him _forget-_

The towering pillars of the Senate public ways disappear into a red-heat-mirage-haze at the corners of Anakin’s vision. Red, red, _red_ until the red is _there_ and moving, peeled away from the background noise of the universe.

A clone _no_ a _vod_ falls into step with him.

A vod, a vod he reminds himself. He’s vod, Rex said so. But Rex also says that Obi-Wan cares more for Anakin than anyone and Rex wouldn’t _lie_ to him Anakin can’t shouldn’t _won’t_ believe that. But Rex has been _wrong_ before and the problem with people who are right most of the time is when they are wrong it’s _devastating_.

Red. Coruscant Guard. Vod.

“General,” the vod says with aggravating unconcern as if the Force isn’t searing electric barely held under Anakin’s skin. As if Anakin isn’t even now fighting the urge to reach grab _rip_ because hurting someone else won’t solve anything, but there’s something bile-sour quietly incubating in his gut that is _satisfied_ when he does.

Sometimes you have to _fight_ to work it off. Rex wouldn’t say that. Rex doesn’t believe in fighting in anger. Echo. Anakin learned that from Echo, because sometimes Cutup gets too bogged deep in ways _everyone_ is _wrong_ and sometimes it takes a good knock-out-fight to pull him out of that. Sometimes you need to fight, work up a sweat, push through to pain to ground you in the here and now.

But never, _ever_ raise a hand against a little brother. Anakin is vod and this man he’s never met is his little brother. Anger is human. Harming a little brother is unthinkable. _ Dar'manda _1.

“Sgt Blockade, Coruscant Guard,” he continues, unflappable in Anakin’s continued silence. “Traffic Enforcement. I’m afraid I need to speak with you.”

Traffic Enforcement? _Traffic Enforcement?_ How _dare_ -

Play along he tells himself. It’s like every other aspect in his life: appease whoever is attempting to assert control over him, get himself out of the situation. Traffic Enforcement can bolt his speeder’s starter cap, can tow it, can leave Anakin fumbling with Coruscant’s incomprehensible public transit system, can leave him shamefaced, pride-in-hand kow-towing to the Jedi logistics for help with the impound.

“Of course Sgt.” His voice is even only because it is empty. “Lead the way.”

He’ll appease, let them play whatever power games they want to play and get out. He has time left on the meter. He made sure to … he has time left …

Their boots echo off the marble floors in the hollow halls. Few beings are speckled about the passages. The light slants in through expensive actual-glass windows in that particular golden hue.

“Sgt, what time is it?”

“Just past nineteenth hour sir.”

He doesn’t have time left on the meter. He hasn’t, for hours.

How long did he talk to the Chancellor? Surely the man, as busy as he is, wouldn’t have stayed talking to Anakin for that long? Couldn’t, because he _would_ , of course, if he was able. The Chancellor has always cared about Anakin’s thoughts. But how long did they talk? Where did Anakin go after that?

Anakin is angry. At himself, at everything. He’s so tired.

Whatever Traffic Enforcement has done, they’re in the right and his anger is that one painted with helplessness. He tries to push it to the Force but even that abandons him. He swallows and tastes bile.

The repulsorlift ride feels unending. The box is carpeted with some deep pile to swallow sound, better for secrets to live only between those who need to hear it. Anakin can feel the static hum of an infrared camera behind the dark, glossy plast floor select panel, for secrets to be stolen as needed.

Everyone’s lying, it seems, and betraying. Anakin is unmoored and adrift, and the vod blessedly doesn’t speak. Anakin’s already forgotten his name.

They step out lower than Anakin’s been before. Durasteel floors instead of stone or carpet, tight little windows with thick transparisteel glass to keep things out, green-blue lights that don’t bother trying to mimic the color of any core world sun and make only token attempts to chase shadows to far corners. It’s an entirely depressing existence, and Anakin can’t help the stab of fury that there are vode made to live like this. It’s enough to carry him down echoing corridors in the Sgt’s wake, through menacing double doors and into an office.

Anakin fumbles over the metal lip between durasteel and carpeting. Pauses. The change of scenery barrels into him like a droideka at full speed. Gone are bare metal walls and unflattering ceiling lights. A dark wood desk dominates the center of the floor, huddled under a mass of blinking lights and a storm of tiny sticky-flimsi notes. Bookshelves guard the far walls and sport a mismatched riot of fidgets and art bits and actual books. It’s comfortable. The serenity here is unfeigned. It might be the only thing in the building that is.

Dogma snags his elbow.

“Thanks Block,” Anakin hears, vague and distant and making no sense.

“Yeah. Sure. Kark Torrent, you didn’t tell me how bad it was.”

Anakin blinks, and he’s sitting. Back to the wall, no, the desk. There’s an open door to the left, the room dark beyond but smelling as though caff has sunk into the walling. The carpet is soft, smells of glue and newness. Dogma kneels in the V of his legs, tapping a stylus against Anakin’s nose.

“Dogma?” The Guard is gone, but there’s rustling from that back room. “What are you doing?”

What is he doing here? What is he doing with the stylus? It pokes at Anakin’s lip and he snatches at it as one would an insect. Hisses when it threatens to slice a line across his finger.

“You’re not supposed to touch someone having a crisis,” Dogma recites manner-of-factly. He pokes an irritant at Anakin’s cheek with a Sith-dammed shiv.

“I’m not having a crisis.”

If you didn’t know Dogma, hadn’t gotten to know him past the bluster he wields, you’d think the look of disbelief was intended to be a mock. It’s exaggerated, Anakin knows, so Dogma is sure his face is actually presenting what he wants you to see.

Despite everything, Anakin has to smile.

“Well,” Dogma says with perfectly deployed snideness. “If you _were_ having a crisis during your completely unresponsive staticky meltdown, I’m not supposed to touch you.” Tap tap with the pointer on the forehead, and Dogma grins bright and pleased at his loophole.

The point is you don’t want to trigger a violent response, technically. Anakin doesn’t feel up for a lesson right now. Besides, he likes Dogma’s little victories almost as much as Dogma does.

“How are you _here?_ ” Dogma’s always wanted to see the Senate, stares out at it whenever they go by with a longing look most other vod reserve for movie theaters and family dining restaurants outside the Authorized Zone. It’s how the Republic _works_ , he thinks, where the rules get made.

No one’s had the heart to tell him the Republic hasn’t worked in decades, and the only rules ever made are the ones convenient. It never mattered, it was a distant dream at best. The Senate was outside the Authorized Zone.

“Top Secret, Eye’s-Only intel report for the Guard,” Dogma quotes and Anakin knows he’s both practiced that phrase and is lying as hard as he can. “I’m _not_ lying,” he corrects without even needing to hear words. “I just never said which unspecified Specialist created the report.”

They share a grin, and Anakin manages a laugh.

“You’re gonna put Jesse out of a job, at this rate.” Shoulder against shoulder, Dogma crowds in next to him.

“Good. If I have his job they’ll have to promote him.”

It’s warm in the offices. Too warm, really, for a blanket but Anakin takes a look at Dogma’s grimly determined face and rethinks any protest. He won’t win.

It’s an odd thing. Different sized squares linked together, the occasional button or fluffy tuft or shiny ball at the joins. Duvet thick in some places, sheet thin in others, a mash of fabrics from very smooth to very soft to very stiff and everything in between. Dogma tucks it around both of them, viciously stuffs it under Anakin’s hips so it won’t get loose and closes Anakin’s flesh hand around a bright green, palm-sized plasticky button.

It’s attached a little loose to the blanket; comes up a bit when he pulls at it and has just enough slack to spin a couple of turns one direction or another. It’s an interesting touch, in contrast to the fuzzy patch it’s attached to.

“I don’t like the way you feel when you come back from here,” Dogma says, because rebranding the truth is sometimes okay for work not for friends, and he is Anakin’s friend. He picks a three tuft cottony-puff thing and fidgets with it, concentrates on it because someone once told him it’s sometimes easier to have hard conversations when you don’t have to force eye contact. “Something’s wrong. You should report it.”

Anakin laughs again, and it’s far less humored. “There’s no one I can report it _to_.”

“There’s always someone higher in chain of command.”

“Wouldn’t understand. No one would-”

“There are two hyperlanes,” Dogma interrupts. “The smart lane and the stupid lane. Where do you think you’re going with this?”

Where did he pick _that_ one up from? Anakin snorts and shoves at his shoulder. Dogma smirks hard and shoves back harder. They indulge in a very dignified smack fight for a couple of seconds before Dogma hits just close to too hard and Anakin draws them back. He finds a button made to look like it’s woven of metal strips and picks at it. The desk is warm and solid under his back.

“I can’t,” Anakin sighs. “There’s not enough to bring up. Not when all I have is a feeling.”

“Some feeling.” The Guard is back, and he’s juggling three mugs with the ease of someone who does it regularly. “You were a snippy karking sleepwalker, pardon the Kaminoan. Drink.” It’s not caff. It’s dark, thick chocolate and sweet with an undertaste of something just the edge of spicy that coats his tongue. Anakin thinks he likes it. The Guard, Anakin notes, _doesn’t_ get wrestled under the blanket.

“That’s Block,”Dogma says between sips of his own drink. His has caff, a lot of it, and much more spice. “He’s Corrie. It’s not his fault, try not to hold it against him. Block come here.”

“Be still my fluttery heart,” he groans, but slumps against Dogma’s far side, only mutters a little when his hair is tugged out of it’s ponytail.

“His hair is almost as good for calming down as Tup’s is,” Dogma narrates blithely as if offering someone else’s hair to play with was perfectly socially acceptable.

Anakin trades a smile with Dogma’s Block, and he lets the edge of apology shine through. The Sgt waves him off. All is forgiven, between brothers. Anakin carefully turns down the offer and Dogma shrugs, uninsulted, and winds the curls around his own fingers.

“Blockade,” the Sgt clarifies and doesn’t seem annoyed that he has to.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to drink the sweet thing until your not a crisis is not crisising. Then you’re going to call Beru and ask her why my sourdough starter isn’t as bubbly as the pictures because if Droidbait killed it I’m gonna be mad. _Then_ when you feel normal we’re going to call General Kenobi. General Windu. General Unduli. General Fisto. I’m going to keep naming Generals until you stop twitching. General Yoda. General Billaba. General Kenobi.”

“He’ll keep going,” Blockade warns. “He’s memorized all couple thousand of them.”

“General Koon. General Neyar.”

“You made that one up.”

“Yes, you’re paying attention. General Secura. General Kenobi.”

“Alright!” He’s laughing, Block’s smothering a laugh and Dogma is grinning bright and impish. There’s a haze of something settling over and around them, protective in the middle of the wave of strife and deception that has flooded this building and sunk deep into it’s stone.

Anakin ducks his head, reaches for one of the metallic balls and is just the edge of surprised at the click it makes when two tiny plates on the surface slide past each other.

“Beru’s just going to tell you it’s fine and maybe feed it more,” he grumbles but without heat. “Like the last three times.”

“I will not underestimate Domino’s ability to murder unsuspecting inanimate objects. Call your brother.”

“We call them sisters.”

“Using two different words is inefficient. Call.”

Anakin calls. And after, he calls Obi-Wan.

A feeling, it turns out, is enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The state of no longer being Mandalorian. One who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul. Back  
> 


	5. Chapter 5

“I wonder who got left in charge?”

They’re a truly mixed bunch, Ahsoka can’t help but notice. Jedi and Padawans, sure. Expected. But there’s a handful of civilians of a rainbow of species muttering, skittish, in a tight little circle in the shadow of towering supply crates. There’s a bundle of nat-born GAR and Navy officers hugging the far opposite hull, all conspicuous in the way they stand and speak and marked by their uniform pale humanity even without their actual uniform.

There are two Mandalorians radiating quiet fury by the starboard viewscreen. There’s a towering Zabrak in worn-in spacer gear that isn’t anything near quiet in her fury and a second smaller male with near identical markings that looks ready to go for something, _anything_ , teeth-first. There’s one Kaminoan that seems to settle into reading long stretches of densely-packed text interspersed with frantic, manic typing at the holoterminal they’ve commandeered.

Barriss holds her comm in a blue-knuckled-tight fist.

Gree’d hung up on her again. He’d apologized. He’d acknowledged that Barriss was a _doctor_ , that she’d do far more good on the ground than here, banished to a ship in orbit around what should have been their home.

What _is_ their home, Ahsoka thinks furiously. What _will be_ their home. Her hand twitches, either towards her rifle or her sabers she isn’t sure which. They’re both equally useless here. The threat is _in her brothers’ heads_ and there isn’t anything she can do about it. And where there _are_ people who could do something about it, they’re all here. Safe, where their beloved Vode can’t be made to hurt them.

Useless.

One of the Mandalorians meets her bared-fanged helplessness with a tip of their bucket and two taps of their bracers. Strength.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes. She needs to be strong. Barriss is furious and trembling and it doesn’t stop when Ahsoka presses their shoulders together.

“I assume one of the masters?” Barriss eventually offers and it takes Ahsoka a few seconds to remember where the conversation even started.

Focus, she chides herself.

Knight Secura is deep in meditation, only rousing to offer messages from Commander Bly and delving back in with whatever response the Kaminoan finds. Anakin has thrown himself into monitoring all their ship’s systems in his own form of meditation. Masters Billaba and Unduli circle from group to group, offering quiet words and dispelling strife before it has a chance to root.

“No, I meant.” She smiles, even though she doesn’t feel it. Even though she knows Barriss knows she doesn’t feel it. The Mirialan returns the smile, wan but trying. “You know what the Vode are like. Sometimes they act like Jedi forget to eat and sleep unless someone puts snacks or bedding right under our noses. I wonder who they deputized for.” She flaps a hand idly. “All of that.”

The silence has a particularly guilty quality; Ahsoka’s gotten good at picking up that resonance along her montrals. She narrows in on the culprit.

Slowly, hesitantly, Caleb raises a hand clutching a battered holopad. “Grey gave me The Manual?” he squeaks.

Barriss breaks first. Her laughter sounds like one barely kept from devolving into something unhappy, much wilder than she ever is. Her shoulders tremor along the fault lines of her control for a moment before she wrestles it back. Ahsoka can _feel it_ when she chooses: this won’t break her. The laughter holds, the melancholy flees as quickly as it tempted. The giggles are contagious.

“Caleb’s in charge!” Ahsoka calls to the curious looks, people desperate for a distraction. She thumps both the mortified younger Padawan’s shoulders. “It’s official and everything. The Commanders probably figure he’s the only responsible one.”

“Hey!” Anakin protests promptly as if she’d coached him on his cue. He’s grinning too. Mostly fake, but there’s enough truth about it to set people who don’t know him at ease. “I’ve never been irresponsible a day in my life.”

Knight Secura opens one eye, raises one eyebrow and Anakin _flushes_.

What is _that_ Ahsoka thinks, thrilled. Is that a Padawan Skyguy story she hasn’t heard? Oh ho!

“I rescind my objection,” he mumbles and dives back into the nav readout. Knight Secura settles back into meditation, ever so slightly more smug. What a karking role-model! Ahsoka makes a mental note to get to know her a lot better.

There are smiles where there weren’t before. Indulgent, some of them. Wondering, others, who’d known Jedi only through rumors and myth.

They’re all family now. Every single person is here because they love the Vode and the Vode love them. There’s never any place in a family for awe and distant admiration. Besides, it’s hard to think of Jedi as those icy beings of lore when little Caleb flutters and flusters and his Master prods and teases him to screeching.

“Blankets!” He finally howls. “If I’m in charge, Grey would make us find blankets and not let the Littles sleep on the floor where it’s cold.”

“A reasonable command Caleb Dume!” Master Billaba cheers. “I am pleasantly surprised.”

“ _Master_!”

“Very reasonable,” one of the Twilek civilians agrees, clutches firmly at the first gasp of normality and grips. She stands and eyes the supply crates as though she’ll crack them open herself, even if she has to smash them with the shotgun she hasn’t let out of her reach. Vode have a type, Ahsoka muses as she hurries to help before _that_ is necessary. Ahsoka maybe flexes just a little bit when she picks up three crates with the Force and tugs the correct one from beneath them.

“Show-off,” Barriss scolds, but she seems impressed anyway. Ahsoka takes the win.

The Littles get the first blankets. Human and Nautolan and Twilek little ones puddled together in a corner of the hold and nested in more blankets than they strictly need. Parents are next: they congregate not far from their kids and while terror had wound them up earlier, exhaustion starts to win out. With warmth tucked around their shoulders, new family sharing their struggles, frenetic pacing eases to a stroll then slips down to sit next to someone. Panicky breaths even out, compulsive weapons checking dies off. Not everyone sleeps, but even the ones that don’t have dialed themselves down to contained.

Masters get bullied into rest too. Bullied, because even the Mandalorian couple had graciously accepted a blanket from Caleb and deigned to sit on it. And yet Ahsoka had to step on Anakin’s seat controls until it sank too low for him to reach the control panel comfortably before he could be persuaded to let the autopilot do it’s job. Barriss hovered at her Master’s elbow and made disapproving tsks until she cracked. Caleb wielded ‘but _Grey_ would think’ and ‘y’know what _Styles_ would say’s with lethal precision, trotting behind his master trailing a blanket like a tail before she too surrendered.

Eventually they too are prodded into a Masterly collective, liberally lined with blankets and plied with the caff one of the Naval officers dug out in the interim.

The murmurs through the combined cabin/hold no longer shudder panic along her montrals.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ahsoka decides, because they’ve already come this far. Barriss curls against her arm. Far below their feet, their brothers hunt down one final violation and shred its hold. Along their sides a constellation of ships sit with them in orbit, each filled with family all holding their breaths.

“It will,” Barriss says and sounds so much more sure. “Have a little faith.” She darts a quick glance from the corner of her eye, almost too fast for Ahsoka to catch. Ahsoka doesn’t miss her tone. “I’m sure,” she drawls, “that Green Company already has a plan to fix it.”

Ahsoka giggles. It’s almost not forced. “And by that you mean Torrent, of course.”

“Willing to bet on that?”

Yes, she is actually.

The squabble lasts them hours. They only ever _truly_ divert to agree that, regardless of which of them win, they’ll clearly both be faster than _Wave_. Caleb’s objections aren’t very strong from the center of a blanket bundle Ahsoka sits on.

(Star Corp’s medics find the chip first. Knight Secura is _so good_ at smug.)


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m not asleep.”

The laugh is a soft rustle of air. Boba feels it in his chest more than he hears it, warm and expanding. He doesn’t even need to choose to smile, it just happens.

“Really? You all look asleep to me.”

Boba’s smile scrunches. “ _She’s_ not asleep _either_ ,” he grouses and the giggle at his neck is more than proof of that. Qi’ra snores unconvincingly. “You don’t actually have the lung capacity to support that,” Boba informs her. He knows appealing to logic is pointless: if she were _actually_ asleep, she wouldn’t have been able to rifle through his pockets.

Boba’s learned to leave his blasters and most of his blades on the ship.

Han, he thinks, _is_ actually asleep. Faked it long enough he got bored, it looks like. Boba’s ankle is slowly going numb and if what he thinks is true and Han has drooled on him he will be quite sure he never lets him forget it.

Qi’ra snuffles and smacks her lips realistically. Then she snores like Fox during Hacweed blooming season. “You should record yourself actually sleeping.” Boba prods at her back. “So you know that you don’t sound like Ugnaught opera.”

“Thanks,” she chirps still, Boba’s _so sure_ , very sound asleep.

The vod laughs again.

The Most Famous Face in the Galaxy, Boba heard once. _ Ba'vot _1 Arla had laughed at that one. It’s Corocentric, she’d said, and Humanocentric too. Most people outside the Core wouldn’t know, didn’t _care_ what face the Republic’s army had under their buckets. Few _in_ the Core did. And most non-Humans differentiate Humans by silhouette and coloring, same way Humans tell, for example, Wookie apart. It made sense, Boba had thought. It was probably true at the time.

The Most Famous Face in the Galaxy smiles down at him. Boba tries not to stiffen. “Vod’alor.”

“Boba.”

He fails.

“Can I sit?”

“Han has your boot blade,” Qi’ra mutters into Boba’s shoulder, even as he nods dumbly. “He’s good at distractions.”

“It’s fine.” Boba loves them both, these feral little brats half his height and twice his moxie, filled with more streetwise than common sense. He tucks his arms around her waist and she makes a very convincing dead weight on his shoulder.

“Okay. Keep it in mind. And are you really ‘Boba’?”

The ‘Alor settles on the floor and it seems wrong, this person who did as much as he did, shoulder up next against Boba’s and boots outstretched. It doesn’t seem right: the glimpses Boba’s seen of him in the distance, he always seemed so busy. Too busy to come find a random clone he doesn’t know to talk with.

But Boba isn’t just a random clone. He’s Boba Fett, and the Vod’alor has just found him on his planet.

“Yeah,” Boba answers, agreement and challenge. “Yeah, I am.”

“It’s better,” Qi’ra declares. “I always thought ‘Draft’ was a stupid name but I thought you’d feel bad if I told you.”

Han snorts. Not asleep then, just much improved at faking. Boba might let him keep that boot blade as congrats.

The Vod’alor rubs idly at a beard he doesn’t have, all the better to hide the grin. He shifts his feet away from Han’s slowly creeping fingers. “Boba, your dad’s here for you.” He doesn’t seem angry. Boba can’t imagine why. By rights… by rights he should be _furious_. Boba lied, he’d deceived the Vod’alor’s own brother, smuggled himself in among the man’s family.

He’d left enough of a trail to bring Jango Fett up behind him.

Boba’s father loves him, and hates clones. If he thought they’d taken him… if he…

It can’t have gone well, however it went.

“I’m sorry.” He bites back the ‘sir’; that’s something Stance is struggling with, it isn’t even Boba’s own habit to break. Han’s fingers brace against his ankle. Qi’ra’s arms tighten around his neck.

The Vod’alor’s hand presses to his arm.

“I made a vow once,” the Vod’alor says. The clasps of his vambraces click loud in the sudden silence. “I would build armor that represents the Vode, my brothers, my people. But before that, I would wear the armor beings with little concern for our lives bought when they bought us.”

The Galaxy had wondered. Political analysts and society gossips alike had wondered. The Vod’alor, strong and steady in the marks of the Vode and the strides they made in defining themselves. And in every engagement, every appearance, over his trappings the Vod’alor wore one scuffed, dented bracer.

The halves separate and tumble into the Vod’alor’s hold.

“I would wear the reminder until I had given every single brother the chance to come Home.”

It’s too big on Boba’s arm, even carefully tightened to it’s smallest. He would need to pad it, line it a couple of times, to even make it viable. And the comm’s so thin, he would need to get used to lacking that weight. He can’t take it, it’s armor too large for him to fill.

Boba’s tongue sits thick in his mouth. The Vod’alor tugs him forward, gently presses their heads together.

“Wherever your feet take you,” the Vod’alor pronounces as a benediction, “whatever you choose to be, however you find yourself, Home is here, should you want it.”

Home, he’s offered; or, if he chooses, just a home on a farmstead that’s his regardless. Brotherhood, if he wants it; or if he chooses, just brothers.

“I don’t know,” he trembles.

“You will,” the Vod’alor assures. “Even if it’s not soon. It will be here when you’re ready.” His smile, though wry, is no less warm. “I’ve learned a little bit about waiting, in my old age,” he says though he could be any number of years younger than Boba himself. “Not everything needs an answer right now. Not every immediate answer is the right one.”

Go, Boba is ordered. Go and come back.

Boba goes. He takes the bracer.

He leaves the boot blade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. (Concordian/JP Mando'a) Unisex title for Aunt or Uncle. Back  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [poison tree](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999608) by [Ro29](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29)




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